Away Atlanta Hawks Wednesday Dec 26 2012

yes dre hedged on the screen expecting a hand off. Im glad he was in to learn from it rather than sitting on the bench hearing about it. We actually had some nice momentum going into the first ot, but some silly 1 on 1 play and worse 1 on 5 plays were the eventual end for us.

Dre got some great experience in this one, and Daye and CV and even Bynum were showcased playing decent to well at times so hopefully a suitor calls and we can start to free up some time for future players. It would also be great if coach got a punch in the arm ( or perhaps a little higher) and realized he needs to shake up the lineups already.

Bynum did make that shot with 3 seconds to go in OT. Only it was goal tended. It irks me that nobody on the Pistons challenged that, since it was a timeout after the shot. After the ball got up on the glass, the defender slapped the backboard. The announcers never noticed it either, even later after they showed a replay of the shot.

Anyway, the officials missed that one.

This is a crazy one to write up. We should have won. CV ended up guarding a tired Josh Smith quite well as Smith kept going against CV's one strength on defense, standing toe to toe with someone in the post. CV does have the height and length for at least that. Good job from him tonight. Bynum hit a ton of shots. Daye kept yanking down the boards and hit a three to put us up one with just 4 seconds to go in regulation. And coach Frank did not make a defensive adjustment. As a matter of fact, Frank hardly ever does. I won't fault him for going with the group that got you there (especially when the same group got you there twice) - but yes, we could have put in better defenders for just that one play without hurting too many feelings.

Stuckey was out there during most of both comebacks. Two comebacks needed since we got down about 22 in the first half, got to within 3, and fell 16 down in the 2nd half. Stuckey, as the first sub in both halves, was part of the sinking in both halves. But he was a big part of the clawing back.

Another strong double double for Drummond. Another game JMAX, despite being a hustling player, was just too short to do any good on defense, and too short to get a shot away on offense.
85 bench points. Announcers claimed that is some kind of oddity that has not been equaled for many years.

Tay did play. Can't say he was all that effective, but I recall he hit a couple of 3's. Heavily negative for the game, along with all the starters. Pretty much all our starters were around a point negative per minute played. That is pretty bad. A lot of turns - especially when we tried to run Knight and Stuckey together to end the 1st quarter.

Stuckey went off with an ankle injury. Came back later to end regulation - just how much did that injury keep us from winning? (He came up short on that one shot.)

Hey, this one, especially down the stretch in regulation where we came back from way down to tie it in 6 minutes, was totally fun to watch. Had me jumping out of my seat and pumping my fist lots. Darn I wish they had won.

Knight and Stuckey, as usual, worked horridly together, often ending in one or the other taking a forced shot, which neither is any good at all at doing. I find it quite amusing how the announcers keep claiming it makes sense - just because Stuckey is doing so well and needs the minutes. Hey, if he is so good, have him directly take minutes from Knight. Quit the non-sense of playing them together. If I had to guess, I would say the vast majority of the hole dug, both of them actually, were dug with Stuckey and Knight paired up together. (Our starting unit was not doing that great - but it got a lot worse each time coach decided to make the same mistake he just loves to make, bringing in Stuckey as his first substitution. Lets instead bring in a shooting guard if we sit our shooting guard, or a small forward if we sit our small forward. Just bring Stuckey in for Knight.)

Between both Tay , and then Stuckey, playing thru injuries, it certainly did not help this game for us.

Again though, we absolutely had this one won. Just a good call away from a victory.

yes dre hedged on the screen expecting a hand off. Im glad he was in to learn from it rather than sitting on the bench hearing about it. We actually had some nice momentum going into the first ot, but some silly 1 on 1 play and worse 1 on 5 plays were the eventual end for us.

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Yeah the one on five selfish play worked for awhile, but in the second OT it was Stuckey trying to win it in the first minute and Bynum in the last minute of play and that combo and lack of three point defense was the difference....

A terrible basketball player who guards Josh Smith pretty well. And hit a pair of three's, one to put us up one in regulation to top off a pretty incredible comeback. Daye did a whole lot of good for us in this game. Just what do you not like about his game tonight?

You'd have to think that Bynum played his way back into the rotation. I know he has deficiencies, but he's unique on this team due to our guard situation. He was scoring at will against a good D and starters. In general, it's not a good sign when Bynum matches Monroe in rebounds.

Daye continues his quest to be our +/- leader for the year at an amazing +57 in only 133 minutes in playing time (that's +20.6 per 48 minutes). The Daye-Villa combo is really spreading the floor and Andre is cleaning up their misses. 8 offensive boards tonight for him compared to 7 for the entire Hawks team.

Monroe falls further to -106 on the season, but with heavy minutes.

So far this year, offense has been our weakness and defense a relative strength. With Drum + these shooters, it's not that bad of a trade-off defensively.

That was the biggest comeback that I can remember. Thrilling. Too bad we couldn't cap it off.

Daye had probably his best game in a long time tonight, he wasnt great by any means but he was better than usual and actually seemed to be focused and not pouting after every miscue. I agree TaShawn, as long as they play with drum it is our most rounded lineup at least we have a defender and some shooters even if they are very streaky. I cant wait to read Larrys post game quotes to see how he twists the game andfinds way to merit using the same starteing lineup.

Didn't the Pistons lose a game to the Hawks last year on the same play that got Horford to the line?

There were at least 3 times in the 2 OT's where the Hawks announcers were wondering why or how long the Pistons were going to play their second unit. They were such homers!

This was a classic Flip Frank game where he got stuck with a hot unit too tired to play the rest of the game. he would have had to have taken the whole group out if he was going to make an OT substitution. There are no favorites on the Pistons. Each guy is equal.

Austin Daye played more tonight then he has all season.

One of the things I liked about Frank last year was that his system transcended the players. He had the Pistons playing a style no matter who was playing and was much more flexible with his substitutions.

Monroe made a sweet like 360 layup attempt that he missed. Loved the move though.

Daye had probably his best game in a long time tonight, he wasnt great by any means but he was better than usual and actually seemed to be focused and not pouting after every miscue. I agree TaShawn, as long as they play with drum it is our most rounded lineup at least we have a defender and some shooters even if they are very streaky. I cant wait to read Larrys post game quotes to see how he twists the game andfinds way to merit using the same starteing lineup.

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Maxiell and Singler are just not very good right now. Gotta try something new.

The Bynum - Stuckey - Daye - Chaz - Monroe lineup playing in the second quarter have to be the worst defensive lineup the Pistons can muster up.

Stuckey and Knight fell for the crowds early countdowns everytime in the first quarter.

I'd love to see Zaza on the Pistons bench.

Max did one heck of a job forcing Smith to go to his strong hand.

Chaz D was so bad the announcers thought the Pistons was fouling intentionally.

Monroes best move this game was to drill Daye with a chestbump.

At first I wondered why they kept Chaz in to defend in the last play of regulation, then the sad truth struck me, everyone else playing that position is just as bad. Max D on Smith was among the worst I've seen and Monroe is Monroe.

...some observations:
LOL at the Hawks announcers for not being able to say the words "Charlie Villanueva" without tacking on the phrase "not known for his defense". Next time we play these guys, I'm gonna listen to the Atlanta feed again to see if I hear "Charlie Villanueava, ...known for not being known for his defense".

Speaking of defense, I'm not sure what lee sees in Austin Daye's defensive game. Dude was getting blown-by so often that you could have flown a kite in that arena last night.
Props to Daye for roughly equaling his season total for rebounds. I LOL'd we he got knocked over by a teammate attempting to execute a simple chest bump near the Piston bench last night.

All & all, good showcase of Daye and 'das BoT' in this one. This game might have finally pushed the Atlanta front office over the edge to making that Daye & Turd for Josh Smith trade that Joe has been trying to pull off.

It doesn't matter how bad you are, if you have a freaking TEEN WOLF on your roster you're never out of a game. Anytime a player can go from DNPCDville to finding himself 26 shot attempts in a game; that's a transformation right there man!

Drummond didn't look that tired to me in the 36 minutes that he played. I think he's ready to have his minutes increased from 20 to 25 per game now (except for back-to-back games).

No matter what the numbers say, Charlie Villanueva's box score is so empty that it sounds like an echo chamber. He could put up 40pts with 15 boards and it you still wouldn't feel like he was helping your team win.

Why didn't Maxiell play in this one? ...Oh, wait. ...now I remember. ...Yeah, he was in there.

Despite his maturity and European experience, Singleton seems to be hitting some sort of rookie wall.

It was an enjoyable game to watch. The starting 5 just weren't getting it done and Will just took over with the second unit and got it going. The highlight being Austin Daye getting decked by Monroe's chest bump. Rodney got hurt but came back in and finished with a bunch of assists. Max and Singler have played their way out of the rotation at this point.

Without Charlie's 3's, that comeback never would have happened. His stroke was looking great. It's not really fair to call him a chucker at this point because of his high efficiency. He leads the team in points per minute and is 2nd on the team in eFG at .534, only behind Drummond who lives off of dunks. One other factoid is that both Villanueva and Daye are tied for the lowest turnover rates on the team at 1.1/36min. Combined, they have a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio compared to about 1:1 for Monroe. Charlie is shooting a higher eFG than any point in his career, including the years with Milwaukee that make JD fall in love with him. His PER of 18.1 is the 2nd highest of his career, which has only dipped below 15 (at 14.9) one year while at MIL. The 3 highest PERs on the team are 1) Drummond: 21.3, 2) Monroe: 19.2, and 3) Charlie: 18.1. Everyone else on the team is at 14ish or below. In ORat-DRat, Charlie is one of only 2 players on the team to have a positive differential at +6 (Drummond is the other at +15!). Charlie is +56 on the year, which is 1 behind the leader, Daye. In summary, we have a guy that is near the top of every advanced stat and also every per minute stat. Might be something there worth not laughing at. The .070 difference in eFG between Charlie and Monroe is the same gap between a .300 hitter in baseball and a .230 hitter.

On Daye's D, it doesn't matter if he gets blown by with Drummond behind him. He just needs to use his length to stop jump shots... which he wasn't really doing either because he was helping on double teams. However, he has the ability to do this, as does Prince and Charlie. His Drat is in the middle of the back on the team. His defensive rebounding rate is 2nd on the team and surprisingly higher than Monroe's. That is part of defense. His block rate is of course higher than Monroe's as well. I still think Daye could be a valuable bench player for us with consistent minutes. If that's not in the cards, then please continue to showcase him so that we can actually get some value in exchange. There have to be other teams out there that would be interested in a 6'11 player who can shoot like him at $3M/year. I can see where Villanueva might be priced out of the market, but Daye shouldn't be. It looks more and more like Daye's dreadful shooting year in 2011-2012 was an outlier caused by the workout routine.

Every time BDL makes the Teen Wolf joke, I always laugh. You put the real TW in a game in the 4th quarter when you're down 20 and that is exactly what would have happened. There is something about the way he bounces and his short height that just makes it a great comparison. That was the 2nd highest scoring game by any Piston player this year, which is unbelievable. The other crazy thing is how many layups he missed because he was fearing shot blockers that weren't there. His 31 could have been closer to 40 if he would have converted those. Bynum is now 3rd on the team in points/min and 1st on the team in assists/min. He just raised his 3P% from about .231 to .368 (tied with Singler) with one hot night. He steals the ball at over twice the rate of Knight or Stuckey.

The players who have found themselves in Frank's bench jail are really not that bad, especially relative to our starting unit. I'm pretty sure that Bynum/Stuckey/Daye/Villanueva/Drummond would finish the season above .500 against our starting unit of Knight/Singler/Tay/Maxiell/Monroe. You're talking about an average PER of 15.34 from the bench vs 13.50 from the starters.

For comparison, on the Miami Heat, the starters have an average PER of 19.36 vs the 12.07 off the bench. Even on terrible teams like the Wizards the differential favors the starters significantly. I don't have time to do it, but I'm wondering if we are the only team in the league with a higher PER bench than starting unit.

The players who have found themselves in Frank's bench jail are really not that bad, especially relative to our starting unit. I'm pretty sure that Bynum/Stuckey/Daye/Villanueva/Drummond would finish the season above .500 against our starting unit of Knight/Singler/Tay/Maxiell/Monroe. You're talking about an average PER of 15.34 from the bench vs 13.50 from the starters.

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Joe blew up the going to work team to be able to field a starting lineup half a decade later that's an underdog against Bynum, Daye, Chaz and two rookies while still having Rip and Ben on the payroll.